Whats on your Thursday Menu?

I found houston to be bad for food in general, actually. It seems that the food places close early. I may be wrong, but it wasn't my favorite.

Be safe. I am glad they require a mask in the airport. Ohio is in a third wave and very close to a complete shutdown again. I am back to ordering grocery delivery and going out of the house as little as possible. Our governor announced last night that we may have the vaccine available here in December. It looks like it will go to health care workers first. They seem confident that the Pfizer vaccine is going to be effective and make life a lot safer next year. I hope they are right.

I heard the same from my job... limited supply.

I live in a neighborhood with a ton of healthcare workers and they have said the big issue with Pfizer's vaccine is that it requires -70* storage which most healthcare facilities don't have. Certainly not typical primary care offices. I think that won't matter for the first group of 15-20 million doses that they give to healthcare workers, but hopefully they make it more stable before it's going out to the general public.

I did hear that about one of the vaccines that was being tested (must be stored at - 70 degrees) - didn't realize it was Pfizer's. Yea - that's going to be a problem. I would imagine only hospitals - if that - have that kind of storage. Hopefully they'll be able to tweak that...

The comments about it in our neighborhood Facebook group are that even the hospitals really have just college dorm size space with those temps for investigational materials. The research labs are the places with larger storage, but they aren't exactly in places you invite patients into. It will be a quandary for sure. As far as I understand it, now that they know the vaccine is effective they need to do stability testing at higher temps because it may be fine, but they just don't know yet.

I know here in Pittsburgh one of our biggest health care providers UPMC has recently purchased tons of refrigeration to handle these vaccines. My co workers wife will be and administerer of the vaccine so he keeps me updated they are definitely ready just need the OK.

Yeah, that still doesn't really help getting it out to the general public. They need to be able to have it in clinics and PCP offices in order to make a large scale impact.

I heard that the plan is to provide it at hospitals because they have the facilities to keep it properly chilled. And that phase 1 would be healthcare workers and nursing home residents.

Safe travels my friend. Enjoy the warm weather.